Category: I-phone

Who doesn’t love the Free and discounted apps? Here are today’s hot iOS apps deals that has gone free or on sale for a very limited time. Some of these apps are selling for significant less price and…

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Microsoft has released its latest iOS application, MSN UK for iPad. The MSN UK app for iPad provides access to MSN UK articles, and also lets you download the current issues for offline reading. MSN…

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Wow this must really give Apple something to think about, perhaps it is time to listen to the jailbreak community and start implementing their ideas in the next iOS update. according to 9to5Mac.com just three days after the release of  “Absinthe,” the much anticipated free unteathered jailbreak tool for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, the site announced that 1 million people jailbroke their A5 device in under three days.

Those numbers are pretty amazing, the reason why the Chronic-Dev team can pinpoint the exact numbers is that Cydia, the app marketplace that comes with the jailbreak offers some pretty neat statistical data. According to the team the jailbreak was installed 491,325 on an iPhone 4S; 308,967 on an iPad 2; and, 152,940 on an iPad 2 that had been previously jailbroken (iOS 4).

Like always, the Chronic-Dev team reminds you not upgrade off of 5.0.1 if you intend to keep the jailbreak. For those looking to jailbreak their device you can find the tools needed here.

Did you jailbreak your A5 device this weekend?

I don’t need to tell you that finding a job can be hard. With our economy shrinking by the day and our forced competition with people across the world, finding a decent job that will allow you to support yourself continues to grow difficult. Thankfully, people smarter than myself have thought about this and are doing their best to help us find work.

Authentic Jobs is one such example. Built by Cameron Moll, Authentic Jobs is a job board for creative professionals, connecting prospective employers with a large pool of talented and passionate job hunters. Authentic Jobs has just released their iPhone app, and we’ve got a full review today.

Finding a Job, for Free

One of the things that might be important to mention right out of the gate is that Authentic Jobs is free for job hunters; instead of charging you to connect with a company that’s posted a job, Authentic Jobs charges the company for the listing.

This is a novel approach that makes all too much sense. If a company is in a position of hiring someone for a long-term or well-paying position they should be able to afford the $99 posting fee; if they can’t, it’s doubtful that you’ll want to be doing business with them.

From the beginning, Authentic Jobs is designed to help you get in touch with companies that are worth seeking a position with.

Finding a Job on the Board

When you first launch Authentic Jobs you’re met with their default screen, a complete job board with a list of open positions. Authentic Jobs has a focus on finding web professionals for companies large and small, allowing you to find work with a narrow focus.

The initial board gives you a good scope of how large Authentic Jobs really is. There are many listings, and I imagine that scrolling through to each one would quickly tire someone’s thumb to the point of exhaustion. Thankfully, Authentic Jobs has thought about this and incorporates a few different ways of narrowing down the results.

First is through the large, colored bar along the top. By tapping on one of the options (Full-time, Contract, Freelance, Internship) you’re shown jobs that either don’t include the activated button (if you’re running from the default view) or that only show the activated button (if you tap the others out). Not ready to commit? Look for a freelance position. Need to provide for a family? Full-time might be the way to go.

Second is the ability to narrow down the job listings by category. Many web-related categories are here, from Front-end Development to Information Architecture to Management. By using this in conjunction with the nav-bar along the top you can find a Freelance App-development job with three taps.

Viewing Jobs by Company

Let’s say that you really want to work with a certain company above all others. With the bottom navigation bar you can choose Companies, taking you to an alphabetical listing of each company that currently has a listing on the service. Selecting a company will take you to their current listings, allowing you to browse by the company instead of the job title with ease.

Of course, you can also search for a certain company to avoid that repetitive scrolling that I mentioned earlier. There’s also the alphabetical scrolling made popular with the iPod: by tapping along the overlaid alphabet on the right side of the screen you can drag your thumb (or other phelange) and be taken directly to the letter of your choice.

Job Listings on the Map

Okay, being able to search by type and company is great for people that might be able to work anywhere, or have a decent amount of portability. Let’s say that this isn’t an option for some, as they’re tied to a certain area or aren’t comfortable working in a virtual office; Authentic Jobs has you covered.

By tapping over to the Locations pane you can view jobs on the default Google Maps view. Red pins will cover your screen upon first launch as you’re given a macro view of your region. By reverse-pinching (someone really needs to name this gesture better than I have) on the map you can narrow down results proportionally, viewing something in the geographic region that you’d like to work in.

Favorites and Other Actions

Okay, so you’ve found a job that you really like. You don’t want to even attempt applying via your iPhone, but you’re running late for an important meeting and you don’t want to forget the job. What’s a guy (or gal) to do? Why, add the job to your Favorites, of course!

Adding a job into the Favorites section is as easy as sliding your finger across a listing. You’re given several options to act on the listing, from Tweet and Share (why they’re divided is beyond me) to viewing the company’s Website or Applying directly via email.

This ability to act quickly on a listing is a godsend, allowing you to perform a desired action quickly and accurately. If I were to have one complaint it would be that the swipe gesture is a bit sensitive, and if I tried to swipe on the first few listings in a category I would often end up refreshing the feed by accident.

The Listing Itself

Alright. You’re sick of hearing about all of the different ways Authentic Jobs can help you find a job. I get that. Let’s talk instead about what type of information you’ll be presented with once you actually select a job that you’re interested in.

Everything that you would expect from a professional job listing is here. There’s often a brief overview of the company (especially if the company is smaller or not that well-known) and a description of the job’s responsibilities and requirements. This is standard fare, as most employers wouldn’t want you applying for a job without you being aware of what the responibilities are and whether or not you’re qualified for the position.

All of the actions and sections described earlier can be acted on through the listing’s view. You can Tweet, Share, Favorite or Apply for a job from directly within this detailed view, see the company’s information, and check on where the company is geographically located.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a job that has to do with the web, Authentic Jobs should be your first stop. The iPhone app is incredibly well designed, easy to navigate and responsive, allowing you to check for new openings quickly and painlessly.

With all of the power of the application, the fact Authentic Jobs is free should make it a no-brainer if you’re looking for work or might be in the future. Download the app and start enjoying job hunting again.

Here in the US, Verizon is pushing pretty hard to make sure that all new smartphones on their network are 4G LTE capable for this year. Verizon sells the iPhone of course, which begs the question, will there be a 4G LTE iPhone in 2012?

We’re not psychics over here, but we know everyone likes making their own predictions, right? Well here’s your chance. Let us know in the poll to the right what you think!

I have always loved apps that make it easier to access what I need when I need it. I am all about efficiency and the more time I can save the better, even if it is only seconds, which then turn to minutes, and well, you know how it goes. One of my favorite apps that definitely helps in reducing my time for the Mac is Alfred, which for those of you that don’t know, is a great tool for accessing all the different things on your Mac a lot quicker and easier.

One thing I never got was the fact that the iPhone never had shortcuts — easy ways to get to the things that I do all the time.  So when App Cubby came out with Launch Center, I just had to try it out to see if it would actually help me in my use of the iPhone. It’s a “one stop shop” where you can access a variety of shortcuts to help you make life a little easier on the iPhone.

Setting It Up

Launch Center has taken most of the frequently used actions that are used on the iPhone and puts them in one easy-to-use application. When you first get into it, you are provided with a handful of different shortcuts that can be tweaked to your preference. The Launch Center, as it is called, is the main screen that has all your  shortcuts so that you can access them quickly in the same app.

First, there are what I call the “main” iPhone shortcuts which are Speed Dial, Text Message and Email. These are pretty self-explanatory in that you can configure any one of these into a shortcut for a specific person. So, if I want to put my mom on speed dial, I can create a shortcut that speed dials her number whenever I want to call her up.

Secondly, Launch Center has shortcuts for your social networks, mainly Twitter and Facebook. It is pretty basic in that you can only post a message to Facebook and compose a tweet. I think that it is good that I can now do this from one application, but at the same time I felt something was missing here. It would have been a little more helpful, at least for me, if I could have an option to post to both at the same time instead of having to recreate each message twice.

I think there is some potential in this area of the application in that if the developer wanted to, they could expand the features. For example, making shortcuts for posting a picture or video to Facebook, or one for creating a DM to someone on Twitter. These may not be useful for some people, but it would still be nice to at least have the option.

One other shortcut that is worth mentioning is the ability to launch a specific website or app. You can create bookmarks for specific websites that you visit a lot, which is a nice feature to have, but doesn’t get me too excited. What really is cool is that you can program Launch Center to actually launch specific apps on your iPhone. For example, lets say you want a shortcut for Instacast; with a few easy steps you can do this. The reason why I like this is that now, instead of crowding my first page with all the apps that I use, I can just have Launch Center on the first page and then program it so that I can just get to my most used apps there.

Lastly, there are a couple of other shortcuts that I wouldn’t use a whole lot, but definitely could come in handy. There is an option for the flashlight as well as another feature called Google My Clipboard. Basically, what it does is that a Google search is done for whatever you have previously copied on your iPhone. I am not sure if these are two that were needed in the app, but I am sure others can find these useful.

Useful or Gimmick?

To be perfectly honest, the jury is still out for me if I would actually use this full time or if it would just be an app that I try out for a bit and then trash because I wasn’t using it. I really like the idea of being able to have one central hub for all the important things that I want to do on my iPhone and Launch Center does this very well. It is clean looking, very well done and definitely has some potential. I think the biggest question will be, “Are people wanting to use something like this or are they fine with what the iPhone already has to offer?”

Overall, I have to admit, this is a neat idea and one that could very well be useful for people. For $0.99, it is worth checking out to see if it will work for you. This is one where I am interested to see if the developer has more in store for this app because I definitely think it has got some potential.

Recently on Android.Appstorm, Nathaniel Mott wrote about What an iPhone User Expects from Ice Cream Sandwich, citing what he’s looking forward to and what has him worried as he patiently awaits his new Galaxy Nexus, a phone I claimed was the best on the market. In what seems to be a serendipitous coincidence, I recently received an iPhone 4S from my job, and I too have some expectations as I begin to use iOS more often.

I Have a Disclaimer Too

Much like Nathaniel, my thoughts come with a disclaimer. While I have used iOS devices in the past (namely on the iPad 1 and the iPod Touch), I’m what some people call a Google Fanboy. I recognize this and try to adjust accordingly. It’s not necessarily that Apple makes bad products — I think the market proves it does not. I just really, really like Android.

That being said, at work I was given the option of an iPhone or an Android phone. I took the iPhone because I already have a Galaxy Nexus and I’m interested in actually using the iPhone for day-to-day operations, not just demoing my friend’s. Just know that some of my thoughts may have to be taken with a grain of salt.

I’ve divided this article up into two sections: “What I Like ” and “What I Miss.” Since the iPhone has been out for sometime and I am familiar with iOS (not to mention I already have the iPhone from work), I can spin this more like a review from  the eyes of an Android user. So, without further ado …

What I Like

It would certainly be preposterous of me to say I don’t like anything about the iPhone, and it’s simply not true. It’s a very popular, solid device and it’s got a lot of great features. So what do I like the most?

Easy iTunes Syncing

Syncing iTunes is something you don’t get on Android without having to jump through some sort of hoops, especially in the early days. Google Music has made things a lot better, but even there, it doesn’t really sync with iTunes; not directly, anyway. With the iPhone, I plug the device in and I’m there: I can sync music, movies, apps, and photos all with the click of a button. It’s really nice that I can easily update playlists, etc. in iTunes and know that when I sync, they’ll be updated on my iPhone.

I also like that there is a separate section for Ringtones, but I would like it better if you could make any audio file your ringtone. Please correct me if that is the case, but I couldn’t do it.

Beautiful/Cool Apps

This I think, is an obvious one. The app experience on the iPhone is great because the apps have a consistent UI and there’s no denying they look better than their Android counterparts, for whatever reason.

Google is trying to fix that with the Android Design Guide.

There are also still apps exclusively for the iPhone that I’m excited to try; Instagram tops the list, and Family Feud & Friends in second. It will also be interesting to compare app UIs between both my Android and iOS devices.

Accessories

Yes, I am a nerd that likes to accessorize my technology, and the iPhone is great for this. There are a wealth of cool cases, covers, connectors, speakers and  more that I am now privy to. Specifically, Disney (I’m a Disney nerd too — surprise!) has some very nice iPhone covers that I’m excited to check out. The backplates are a notable accessory for me, because they do for the iPhone what I wish cases did for Android phones — add some protection without increasing the girth of the device.

What I Miss

Freedom

Freedom is the number one thing the drew me to Android in the first place. Not only can I customize my home screen through widgets, I can install third-party apps without going to the Android Market. This means I can easily try betas, buy apps from other sources (like the Amazon Appstore) and test my own apps right on my device. I can also completely customize the UI with new skins and mods without having to jailbreak (or root, as we Android users call it). Your device is truly your device.

Strong Google Account Integration

This one is a no-brainer. Android devices sync perfectly with your Google Account, as soon as you boot the device. While syncing with iTunes is nice, just syncing is even better. And since I use GMail, Google Calendar, Google Music and Google Reader, my email, contacts, calendar, music and news feeds are all synced to my phone over the air, instantly. No wires required.

Android’s Keyboard/Autocorrect

This is something I didn’t think I’d miss until I didn’t have it anymore. I feel the keyboard starting in Gingerbread (2.3) is considerably better than the one in iOS. I think it’s easier to type on and the autocorrect function is much better.

Not only are you given more options for corrections, I feel you’re a bit more aware that you’re being corrected, and Android will automatically present you with punctuation when you type a space. I didn’t realize how nice this feature was until I kept tying to use it on iOS.

Final  Thoughts

So my friends will either rejoice or banish me when they read this depending on what camp they are in. However, I do enjoy some aspects of the iPhone, primarily what I’ve mentioned. I also think the phone is a good size and the screen/camera are incredibly nice. The basic UI does leave me wanting more, and there are some features I truly miss while on iOS. Using the iPhone for a couple of weeks now isn’t enough to make me switch, but I’m definitely willing to give credit where credit is due!

One major complaint about reading an eBook is the experience; holding an iPad is just not the same as holding a book and thumbing through the pages. This complaint may lose some of its weight if the folks at the KAIST Institute of Information Technology Convergence can get their patented Smart E-Book Interface Prototype out of the lab and into the wild.

The interface uses the private Apple API for the page flip and turns it upside down and inside out. Not only do you get a beautiful page flip like the one in iBooks, you also get page flipping that lets you scan 20 or 30 pages at a time, multiple page flips that are controlled by the speed of your finger swipe, and a way to hold your thumb on one page and flip through the book with your fingers. You can see it in action in the video below to marvel at how the interface mimics the way most people flip the pages of a softcover book.

[Via Macgasm]

Students demonstrate innovative iPad book page flip originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Avatron is a company well known for their iOS and Mac utilities. We are particularly fond of their Air Sharing apps and Air Display, among others. They have a reputation for building solid, reliable products. I could sense the dismay in CEO Dave Howell’s message when he pinged me today to let me know that Avatron would be pulling their Air Dictate app.

In order to comply with App Store rules, Air Dictate used a little trick to hide the standard keyboard while offering one-button access to Siri dictation functions. This is distinct from the non-App Store-safe approach I wrote about on Thanksgiving.

Howell explained, “What we did was to hide the keyboard and text field entirely. We did that by putting another view in front of the keyboard window. When you press our big Start Dictation button, we map that to a tap on the little microphone button. But how? There’s no public method to change the location of a tap event to some other location. The solution to that was the clever part of Air Dictate. We actually changed the position of the keyboard window so that its mic button is directly under whatever point you tapped. Then we move it back again after the event has passed through. Same thing for the Done button.”

The app relied on interface assumptions that could possibly change without warning in future Apple updates, or could vary with international keyboard layouts. This caused a point of conflict with Apple review. “The cold hard fact is that every update of iOS is likely to break all of our apps for one reason or another,” Howell said. “Sometimes new Apple bugs, sometimes intentional changes to their frameworks. You don’t have to break any rules for your apps to be broken by an iOS update!”

Apple further proposed that Avatron discard their custom interface, which was both eye-catching and streamlined, and ask users to locate and tap the microphone button directly. “Apple’s suggestion was that we should throw away our custom interface (sacrificing its convenience for the blind and disabled, who would have trouble tapping the tiny mic button), and just throw up a standard keyboard. We don’t want to do that so we’re not planning to release any more updates to Air Dictate.”

RIP Air Dictate.

Avatron retires Air Dictate tool for remote Siri dictation originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Another piece of the Apple education puzzle has fallen into place. The company has published a set of special iTunes U support web pages to help with questions from users of the new iTunes U app, from teachers who are using the iTunes U Course Manager, and from administrators who use the iTunes U Public Site Manager.

The iTunes U app support pages provide information on how to use the new app or access iTunes U through iTunes on Mac or PC.

According to Apple, “iTunes U Course Manager is a web-based tool that allows instructors to create and distribute courses on iTunes U. Instructors at K12 school districts as well as colleges and universities whose institutions have an iTunes U site can get access to iTunes U Course Manager through their iTunes U Public Site Manager administrator.” As you’d expect, the support pages for iTunes U Course Manager are quite a bit more detailed than those for the iTunes U app, and cover everything from creating an instructor profile to editing a course.

Finally, the pages for iTunes U Public Site Manager (the tool that iTunes U site administrators use to manage their public content within the iTunes Store) cover the gamut from system requirements to marketing a public site and creating a properly-formatted feed.

The new support pages are a good way for students, educators, and administrators seeking information about iTunes U to start getting answers from the source.

Apple publishes iTunes U support pages originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A strong windstorm gave some bloggers in the Netherlands a chance to view the progress of construction at the new Apple Store on the Leidseplein in Amsterdam. The wind blew away part of the barriers around the new store, and Apple fans in the city quickly took advantage by shooting some great photos.

According to iPhoneclub.nl, the store is expected to open next month. The bloggers are thinking that Saturday, February 18 may be the opening date. That speculation is based on finding out that a company that will take care of the building cleaning is expected to start work at the site in mid-February, and that training of employees has been scheduled.

Like the Apple Store at the Louvre in Paris, the Leidseplein Apple Store has a pyramidal glass roof. A circular glass staircase (see photo at top) will connect the two floors of the store, which will be the first Apple Store in the Netherlands.

And now, a picture of Dutch Apple Pie to go along with the Dutch Apple Store — after all, who doesn’t love pie?

First Apple Store in the Netherlands to open in February originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The excellent ReadNow application, which allows you to easily read articles from your Instapaper and Read It Later articles on your Mac, has been pulled from the Mac App Store “…because of an infringement letter.” Developer Michael Schneider added “[i]n my current situation I’m not allowed to provide any further information.”

The good news is that if you have already purchased the app, you can still download it from the “Purchases” tab in the App Store.app even though the iTunes page for ReadNow now leads to the message, “Your request could not be completed.”

However, as I waited for the Mac App Store to load on my iMac this morning, I found myself wondering “What would I do if I couldn’t re-download it from the Mac App Store?”

Fortunately I have the app on my MacBook Air, so I could go to /Applications/ReadNow.app and then select File » Compress “Read Now” (or control+click the app and choose “Compress” from the menu).

Terminal option

If you wanted to make a copy of ReadNow (or any app) on the command line, I believe that your best option is using ditto like this:

sudo ditto -v --keepParent -kc ReadNow.app ReadNow.zip

(I don’t claim to be a ditto expert, but I can tell you that worked for me. The -k option tells ditto to make zip archives. The –rsrc –extattr and –qtn options are all the default, so they don’t need to be explicitly specified.)

I then copied the ‘ReadNow.zip’ file to my Dropbox so I would have it, just in case Apple removes the option to download it.

This should work for all Mac App Store apps (Xcode and “Install Lion” excepted), but may not work for other apps which use an installer and may install other files besides the ones in /Applications/.

Show me all of my Mac App Store apps

Speaking of the command line, if you want to see a list of all the Mac App Store apps that you have installed on your computer, you can run this command in Terminal.app:

find /Applications \
-path '*Contents/_MASReceipt/receipt' \
-maxdepth 4 -print |\
sed 's#.app/Contents/_MASReceipt/receipt#.app#g; s#/Applications/##'

Note: this won’t show you Xcode, because Xcode is an unusual case. It is an installer which installs Xcode and then the installer is removed.

An ounce of prevention

There has been no indication that Apple will remove ReadNow from your list of Purchased apps, I just wanted to have a backup ‘just in case.’ Hopefully the “infringement letter” issue will be settled soon and it will be available again. However, if the iOS App Store is any indication, eventually jettisoned apps will become unavailable for re-download. Also, the upcoming sandboxing requirements may lead to some existing applications being removed.

As always, it’s good to have your own backups rather than relying on being able to re-download anything from “the cloud.” I wrote a small shell script which will look in /Applications/ for any applications which have the Mac App Store receipt, and create a .zip file for each of them. (While I have tested it myself and it works for me, YMMV, use only at your own risk, etc.)

To use it, download the script to your Desktop (or wherever) and then run:

chmod 755 ~/Desktop/backupmas.sh

And then run it via

~/Desktop/backupmas.sh

(Obviously if you saved it somewhere else, use that path instead of ~/Desktop/.)

It may ask for your administrator password. If so, that’s the one you use to log in to your computer, not your Mac App Store password.

How to backup your Mac App Store apps originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You’ll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what’s happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today’s Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.

No Flash? Click here to listen.

Daily Update for January 23, 2012 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s textbook endeavor may be off to a better start than anyone expected. According to Global Equities Research, a firm that tracks iBook sales, iTunes customers downloaded over 350,000 textbooks in the first three days of availability. The system also logged 90,000 downloads of iBooks Author, despite lingering questions about licensing and ownership rights of the resulting work.

Apple iBooks Author opens a new world of publishing for the education market. As pointed out by Steve Sande in his review of the authoring tool, iBooks Author is designed to help writers produce textbooks. Usually a market reserved for prominent publishers, the tool could open the door for smaller publishers to distribute books or even individual teachers to produce customized content for their students. As someone who homeschool their children, I’m excited to see if curriculum companies embrace this technology. I’m already using the iPad about 30 percent of the time, and would love to use it more often.

Estimated 350,000 iBooks textbooks downloaded in three days originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Absinthe for Linux is now available for download. In this guide you’ll learn how to jailbreak iphone 4s and iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1 on Linux. Absinthe is available for all major pltforms…

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